Good evening, honourable members of the committee. My name is Arthur Lee. I am pleased to be here today to speak on behalf of the Students Against Drinking and Driving of Alberta.

SADD Alberta, as we're more commonly known, began almost 30 years ago, with a goal to eliminate impaired driving among the youth of our province. With a focus primarily on high schools, SADD has worked with student-led chapters at hundreds of schools across the province since its inception. Through educational resources, workshops, presentations, and conferences, we strive for prevention and to achieve our goal of uniting and motivating the students of the province to stand up against our country's number one criminal cause of death: impaired driving.

Over the years we've learned that changing perceptions, attitudes, and decision-making about impaired driving can be slow, difficult, and at times very discouraging. Our message has not always been well received and is sometimes, to our dismay, met with ambivalence or even resistance.

Bill C-46 proposes several alcohol-impaired driving laws that we believe are long overdue and will make a significant difference in reducing the number of alcohol-related injuries and fatalities on our provincial roadways. There are too many changes and proposals in this bill for me to go into detail about; however, there are a few that I'd like to speak to specifically.

First and foremost is mandatory roadside screening. While we understand that there may or may not be legal challenges facing this proposal, we want to echo the pleas of other witnesses and MPs who have gone into great detail about the effectiveness and evidence of positive results seen by other jurisdictions that have already implemented this measure.

We are aware that mandatory roadside screening is a very contentious issue and has been widely debated for many years. However, in discussing this idea with licence-holding students from Alberta, we have come to realize that this really is a non-issue for many of today's new drivers. To specifically quote a group of students who we asked about this topic, they said that if you have been pulled over by a police officer, you should follow their instructions, and if you have nothing to hide, why would you refuse a breath sample?

Now, many a lawyer would likely have a rebuttal argument for these students, but we think they have simply highlighted why mandatory roadside screening should be socially acceptable in today's society, Alberta's society, and Canada's society. They do not see how providing a breath sample should be any different from producing a valid licence and registration upon request by law enforcement. It's time to make a change for the better. W e sincerely hope that we see our police officers utilizing mandatory roadside screening in the very near future.

Second, Bill C-46, generally speaking, proposes stricter fines and penalties for individuals convicted of alcohol-impaired driving. Again, we've told our students about these changes, and the responses were unanimous. While some commented that the current fines were already quite substantial from a high school student's perspective, all agreed that increased fines and penalties will aid our mission to discourage all drivers from risking their safety and the safety of others by driving impaired.

These changes are also nothing new. They have been proposed time and time again, yet we are always left with the status quo. It's time to take a strong stand against impaired driving and make the penalties more representative of the crimes that are being committed. I recently spoke with a police officer who shared a brief story with me. He had pulled over a vehicle with two youths in it and asked them if they had been drinking. They emphatically said no, as they knew how bad drinking and driving was. He then asked them if they had been smoking any marijuana, to which one of them replied, “What's wrong with driving high?”

While I was encouraged by their attitude toward drinking and driving, I was shocked at their response to driving under the influence of drugs. This brings me to the second part of Bill C-46 as it relates to drug-impaired driving. With Bill C-46 coinciding with the legalization of marijuana, it is crucial that we recognize the fact that our country is home to a very high number of underage cannabis users. With such high usage rates comes a nonchalant attitude about operating a motor vehicle after doing drugs.

Student feedback we received specifically about drug-impaired driving indicated that students believe the fines and penalties for drug-impaired driving should be similar to those for alcohol-impaired driving. However, they admitted that the general sentiment among their peer groups was that driving under the influence of marijuana was—quote—“better” than being impaired by alcohol.

In just nine short months, Canadians are going to be hit by a tidal wave of new laws, new changes, and most certainly new tragedies as they relate to drugs and drug-impaired driving. As a group that has spent many years working to educate students about the dangers and risks of alcohol-impaired driving, we feel like weary mountain climbers who have almost reached the summit only to peer through the clouds and see another whole range of mountains needing to be scaled just off in the distance.

While we support the penalties and fines proposed in Bill C-46 for drug impairment, we believe they are only a beginning. We anticipate that roadside saliva and drug testing will face contentious legal battles for years to come. We urge the government to invest in technology and research so as to provide enforcement officers with the best tools, training, and resources they need to combat drug-impaired driving and make our roads safer.

Other jurisdictions that have legalized the use of marijuana have seen spikes in drug-impaired driving offences, and we feel that these policies should be given careful consideration in order to provide safeguards for all Canadians. SADD's focus in the future will almost certainly have major drug-impaired driving education and prevention components. The initial education effort surrounding the new laws will be one of the biggest challenges we have ever faced. There is already confusion, misinformation, and a lack of knowledge among students, teachers, and parents about cannabis and drug-impaired driving. How the different levels of government communicate these new laws and changes to Canadians will be crucial to our campaign of keeping our roads safe. We need to draw as many parallels between drug-impaired and alcohol-impaired driving as we can. Otherwise, we will be starting at square one when it comes to changing perceptions and attitudes towards drug-impaired driving.

In closing, I would like to thank the honourable members of this committee and have them ask themselves: is this enough? Is this enough time to properly educate people, train officers, and implement new drug-impaired driving laws? Are these laws tough enough to effectively change driving behaviours? What else can be done? Where is the mandatory education component? Where are the mandatory fines and penalties for passengers in a vehicle when a driver blows over the legal limit? What other safeguards can we put in place? Again, is Bill C-46 enough?

The mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers of this country are begging you to help protect their children and make our roads a safer place for all. For decades families, friends, and communities have been devastated by the destruction that impaired driving has caused. A new generation of drivers are pulling onto our roadways, and we have an opportunity and a responsibility to get it right this time.

Thank you.

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